The Sarah Jane Adventures press launch, September 2009

A tin dog, a space rhino in jackboots, and hordes of excited kids… it could only be the launch of Series 3 of The Sarah Jane Adventures…
The setting was London’s plush Soho Hotel and a group of journalists and their kids had been invited along for an exclusive screening of the series opener of SJA; a two-part story featuring an evil life form called Androvax who is being pursued by a platoon of rhino-like Judoon, a kind of intergalactic police force first seen in Doctor Who.
Talking of the Doctor, David Tennant stars in two episodes of the new series of SJA, which see the Timelord turning up at the wedding of his former assistant Sarah Jane.
On the night, David himself wasn’t in attendance, but faithful canine sidekick K9, the eternally youthful Elisabeth Sladen, who plays Sarah Jane Smith, and the teenage cast who play Luke, Clyde and Rani, posed happily for photos and signed autographs for their young fans, while a Judoon periodically stalked the room, scattering squealing kids before it.
The new series, which starts on CBBC on 15th October, also features an extraterrestrial girl who can make people play games against their will, a living painting, a haunted house, and monsters who want to infect Earth with a rampaging weed. Guest stars include Nigel Havers, Suranne Jones, Callum Blue and Floella Benjamin – and Lis Sladen’s real-life husband Brian Miller, who appears in the second story in the series, The Mad Woman In The Attic.
SJA is now shot in HD, and, although she is still stunning, Lis, who is 61, admits that was a concern for her at first.
‘But then I learned that we had a great lighting guy so I thought ,“Bring it on!” That’s my only condition for doing the next series – I have to work with the same lighting guy. I’m not moving without him!’
ENDS